Virtual Event: Nicole Krauss

Harvard Book Store and Harvard Hillel welcome writer NICOLE KRAUSS—author of the acclaimed, bestselling novels The History of Love and Forest Dark—for a discussion of her widely anticipated story collection, To Be a Man. She will be joined in conversation by celebrated novelist and essayist JOSHUA COHEN, author of Witz and Book of Numbers.

Ticketing

All tickets include a hardcover copy of To Be a Man.

About To Be a Man

In one of her strongest works of fiction yet, Nicole Krauss plunges fearlessly into the struggle to understand what it is to be a man and what it is to be a woman, and the arising tensions that have existed from the very beginning of time. Set in our contemporary moment, and moving across the globe from Switzerland, Japan, and New York City to Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, and South America, the stories in To Be a Man feature male characters as fathers, lovers, friends, children, seducers, and even a lost husband who may never have been a husband at all.

The way these stories mirror one other and resonate is beautiful, with a balance so finely tuned that the book almost feels like a novel. Echoes ring through stages of life: aging parents and new-born babies; young women’s coming of age and the newfound, somewhat bewildering sexual power that accompanies it; generational gaps and unexpected deliveries of strange new leases on life; mystery and wonder at a life lived or a future waiting to unfold. To Be a Man illuminates with a fierce, unwavering light the forces driving human existence: sex, power, violence, passion, self-discovery, growing older. Profound, poignant, and brilliant, Krauss’s stories are at once startling and deeply moving, but always revealing of all-too-human weakness and strength.

Praise for To Be a Man

“This triumphant first collection from Nicole Krauss crisscrosses the globe in 10 ambitious stories written over two decades that wrestle with sexuality, desire, and human connection . . . This is a spectacular book.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“This collection of stories from Krauss is a wonder, with the author’s signature straddling of the tragic and the absurd, her particularly Jewish frame of reference, and the extraordinary range of her narrative voice . . . A tremendous collection from an immensely talented writer.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“What defines a life well-lived?...Krauss winningly explores these and other weighty issues in a home run of a short story collection . . . Above all, these stories pay homage to strong women. As female characters mature, they find resilience in the power they wield despite societal constraints.” —Booklist, Starred Review